TOTAL INFORMATION ANALYSIS

Monday, December 27, 2004

Did apparent Ukraine election victor Victor Yuschenko poison himself with dioxin to gin up sympathy in the presidential race? From AP 12/17/2004:

Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned with TCDD, the most harmful known dioxin and one contained in Agent Orange, a scientist who analyzed his blood said Friday.

The tests showed the TCDD was pure and must have been concocted in a laboratory, lead investigator Abraham Brouwer told The Associated Press. The tests, confirmed by three labs in the Netherlands and Germany, also confirmed that Yushchenko's blood contained 100,000 units of the poison, the second-highest concentration on record.
[...]
TCDD was an element in Agent Orange, a herbicide sprayed by U.S. troops during the Vietnam War to clear dense vegetation and expose their enemy. The herbicide became infamous after being linked to myriad health problems in veterans and villagers.

The poison, chemically known as tetrachlorodibenzoparadioxin, usually occurs mixed with other dioxins produced by the same processes.

However, the investigation led by Brouwer at BioDetection Systems in Amsterdam found Yushchenko was poisoned with pure TCDD, not a mixture.

"That excludes a huge number of sources," said dioxin expert Dr. Arnold Schecter, a professor of environmental Sciences at the University of Texas School of Public Health in Dallas who was not involved with the investigation.

"If it's pure TCDD, that means it could only be labs that buy or sell TCDD (for research purposes), government biological or chemical weapons units or a clever chemist," Schecter said.
[...]

JunkScience.com December 13, 2004 :

Someone apparently tried to poison Ukranian presidential candiate Viktor Yushchenko with dioxin. But why would anyone use dioxin as a poison? A heavy dose of dioxin may gradually cause a very bad case of chloracne, a condition which is transient. .. Dioxin, in fact, is not terribly toxic to humans.


A New York Timesop-ed (December 19, 2004) asks:

why use dioxin? ... What if the intention was not to kill Mr. Yushchenko but to injure him in ways that mimic a fall from grace, like superimposing the ruined face of an alcoholic onto a once handsome man?

Perhaps Team Yushchenko just wanted to demonize the opposition for poisoning him, while posing no risk the poison would result in death. This would explain why Yushchenko stopped a full investigation into the poisoning: The Scotsman 13 Dec 2004:

Ukrainian opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko has called for a serious investigation to determine how he was poisoned by dioxin, but urged it be conducted after the December 26 presidential runoff election to avoid influencing the results.
[...]
"I don’t want this factor to influence the election in some way -- either as a plus or a minus," Yushchenko said as he left the Austrian clinic yesterday and headed back to Kiev.

"This question will require a great deal of time and serious investigation. Let us do it after the election -- today is not the moment."
[...]
While high concentrations of dioxin remain in his blood, doctors said Yushchenko’s organs have not been damaged and he is fit for the campaign trail.

"He has almost made a complete recovery," hospital director Dr. Michael Zimpfer told The Associated Press."

| Posted at 05:14 | PERMA-LINK |

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